“But of course!” Monsieur Chastain said. “Miss Caroline insisted she needed an entirely new wardrobe for her position in the White House. Such an honor! My wife and I have been sewing around the clock for two weeks.”

“And how much is Miss Caroline’s new wardrobe going to cost me?”

The Frenchman reached into his breast pocket and presented him with an envelope. “She has already paid a portion of the fee but assured us you would gladly pay the balance upon delivery.”

Gray wasn’t going to gladly do anything, but if Caroline had signed a contract, it needed to be honored. She wasn’t home to consult, and the invoice was five pages long. Five pages! Morning gowns, evening gowns, walking suits, riding habits, and what on earth was a polonaise overskirt? The tally at the bottom nearly drove the breath from his lungs.

He strode to the kitchen, where Otis was dumping shards of ice into a bucket. “Did you know about Caroline’s attempt to drive us into bankruptcy with a wardrobe fit for Marie Antoinette?”

“She mentioned that since you’d be flush with cash after selling the Pelican, she might buy a new dress or two.”

“Or fifty,” Gray muttered as he headed back to the front room. Typical Caroline, spending money before it even hit their bank account. The sale of the steamship would take months to complete and could still fall through.

He intended to verify every piece of this delivery before he paid the invoice. The parlor was a spacious room, but it felt cramped once it was filled with trunks and hatboxes. Monsieur Chastain opened the first trunk and peeled tissue paper away from a lemony yellow gown with lace trim.

“Which one is that?” Gray asked.

“The silk bombazine walking dress,” the Frenchman said, pointing to a line on the last page of the invoice.

Gray made a tiny check beside the item. “Continue,” he ordered. He sat on the sofa and inspected each piece as it was lifted from the wrappings. The items were carefully draped over the sofa, the chairs, and the coat-tree until the parlor was festooned with gowns of every shade.

The worst was a box containing mounds of silken undergarments. Why did Caroline need new underwear for this job? He could appreciate that she needed to be finely turned out for life inside the White House, but she surely already had perfectly serviceable underwear.

“Take the underclothes back,” he ordered. “I’m not paying for them.”

“But Miss Caroline asked for them,” the Frenchman said delicately. “They were custom-made to her specifications.”

“Then she can pay for them. I’m not, so please take them away. What’s in the next box?”